Sasha laughed. “If you think this is naked, kid, you're in for a nasty surprise on your wedding night.” And gave him a playful kick on the backside before strolling to the washroom and shutting the door.
Sasha's morning run took her through narrow lanes until the bottom of the slope where alleys snaked up precarious stairways between crumbling walls. She ran with several local Nasi-Keth as it was always safer to move in groups, even across the lower slopes.
The run ended in Fishnet Alley by a nondescript lane between buildings. Squeezing through, the lane opened into a broad courtyard. Within it, men wielded practice stanches in single combat and the air echoed with the sharp crack of wood on wood, and the grunting exertion of combatants.
Sasha walked to the courtyard's north side and crouched to splash cold water from a bucket on her face. She grabbed some breakfast from a table under the awning, apologising to the lady for being late. There were doorways leading from the training courtyard into neighbouring houses, and people came and went.
A little girl with tangled hair and a brown-cloth dress watched her shyly as she ate, seated on an old footstool. Sasha smiled at her. In Lenayin, there were no children allowed in the training hall. And no women, either…herself, the exception. Here amongst the dockfolk, everything was communal. People had no choice but to cooperate, she supposed as she chewed, watching the men fight. They all lived cheek by jowl and space had to be shared.
Finishing breakfast, she strode to the opposite side of the courtyard, strapped on a padded banda, took up a stanch and stepped onto the pavings.
“Rodery,” she said, interrupting the boy's taka-dan. “Your quarter-step is mistimed, I've been watching. Here, I'll show you.”
Rodery was a big lad of nineteen summers with broad shoulders and dark freckles across his square face. He turned and frowned at her, displeased at the interruption. “Uman Torshai says my footwork's good.”
“It is good,” Sasha agreed impatiently, taking stance opposite. “I can make it better.”
She took him through his moves. To Rodery's credit, he watched and listened, regardless of the occasional dark stare coming from other parts of the courtyard. The svaalverd-the serrin martial art-was all about balance, technique and timing. She demonstrated Rodery's slow adjustment to a roundhouse strike, and gave him some bruises to prove the point. Then she drilled him until his feet adjusted properly, and comprehension dawned in the big lad's eyes, as he deflected her attacks with new poise and speed.
Sasha grinned at him, twirling her stanch. “You see? Much better.”
“I'd never thought of doing it like that,” Rodery conceded, repeating the steps. “The timing's complex.”
Sasha shook her head impatiently. “No, there's no complexity in svaalverd. Look for the simplicity, every time. It's just basic balance, see?” She demonstrated the six basic stances that every five-year-old learned. “And the balance dictates the stroke, see? It's all the same thing. Kessligh tells me that improving at svaalverd is a constant quest to make everything as simple as possible. There's always one thing that drives everything else. Look for it.”
“But…” Rodery shook his head, with a spreading half-smile. “But there's so many things…”
“Ele'sherihl,” Sasha told him.
Rodery winced. “Wait, I know that, that's…um…”
“Study your Saalsi!” Sasha said in exasperation. “Petrodor is full of serrin and they could all talk a stone to boredom! Ask them a question, they'll go on till sundown! Ele'sherihl means ‘the product of many things’…terrible translation, of course, but if you learn the tongue you'll realise how it works. Some things are made that are made up of many things. Like a boat-the hull, the mast, the sails, all are made separately. But, once completed, it's just one boat. Ele'sherihl. When you fight, make each stroke just one stroke, not a combination of feet and hands and torso. One thing. Simplicity. That's the key to svaalverd.”
There came a thud from nearby and a cry of pain. Sasha looked and found a teenage girl clutching her arm. Liam, her opponent, looked exasperated.
Sasha strode over. “Liam! Go easy! The object is to help her improve, not break her bones!”
“I'm okay,” the girl protested, shaking her arm. It was Yulia, a slight girl a little shorter than Sasha. She wore her auburn hair in a ponytail and her banda looked a little too big for her. She'd only started attending the training regularly after Sasha had arrived in Petrodor. “It's not bad.”
“It was a simple move!” Liam protested. “It's not my fault if she's no damn good!” Yulia, to Sasha's disappointment, only stared at the ground. Damn it, was she the only human girl in Petrodor prepared to fight back?
“Would you beat up a child?” she asked coldly.
“Look…” Liam turned to face her, slinging his stanch over his shoulders with a swagger. Cocky, like so many young Torovan men. “She's not a child. She has fifteen summers. And for that age, she's pathetic. Or are you going to tell me otherwise?”
“She needs work,” Sasha retorted. “So do you. Girls in this city don't have access to male umans, and they're usually the ones who can fight. And, what a surprise, I find girls aren't made to feel welcome in the courtyards, either. No wonder they fall behind the boys when fools like you try to break their arms whenever they try to learn!”
“Bah!” said Liam, with a dismissive wave. “You make excuses like all the others.”
“You truly think women can't fight the svaalverd?” Sasha asked dangerously.
“Sure! Serrin can! And you can, you're a wild, crazy highlander, they fed you raw sheep's bladders in the crib and you grew up strangling wild wolves with your bare hands!” There was laughter from watching men. Many had stopped their sparring to observe the confrontation. “But it's not our culture! And you, you should know better than to come into Petrodor from your mountain kingdom and try to turn all our women into wild amazons like yourself-”
“Ha, you're just scared of women.” She could see Uman Torshai circling behind to her left, tapping his stanch with one hand, appearing to watch the argument.
“Scared of women!” Liam thought that hysterical. “Truly, do I look scared?”
“Most of you Verenthanes are scared of women. Your entire world revolves around controlling women: make them marry, make them cook, make them make babies until they burst…”
“You're crazy!” Liam retorted.
“And all sin comes from women,” Sasha continued, “and all lust, and adultery's always a woman's fault, and husbands’ tempers…all your faults! All your faults, but don't take responsibility, oh no! Just blame your mother, your wife, your daughter. You're just a spoiled little brat who never had his ears boxed and thinks the stars all circle his arse. You couldn't take responsibility for your own fart. And you can't let your women do what they want, because then who'll you have to blame all your failures on?”
It was too much. Liam levelled his stanch at her, his face flushed red. “You watch your mouth.”
Sasha snorted. She'd been putting up with this for weeks now, and she was finally sick of it. “Did your mama not raise you properly, or do you just have a really small cock?”
Uman Torshai's stanch whistled at her knees from behind, to Sasha's little surprise. She swivelled, deflecting, and smacked Torshai viciously hard across the banda. The older man staggered and fell.
“Hey!” Liam yelled in fury and swung at her. Sasha performed a simple deflection, which flowed into a sidestep and strike, hitting him across the shoulder. Another attacker aimed angrily for her head and Sasha overbalanced him with an angled parry, twisted for maximum power through the same motion of feet-through-shoulders, with a crack that sent him flying.
Torshai came back to his feet and at her, but his timing was off and predictable with anger. Sasha crushed it, sending his stanch flying and neighbours ducking for cover, then took an arm with a downward strike. Liam stood bewildered, wondering what to do. Sasha jabbed, dancing forward. Provoked the awkward parry, and disarmed him with a flick to the wrist, then stabbed hard to the midriff with her full weight of momentum behind it. Liam fell hard on his backside, clutching his wrist and stomach.
About her, all was silent. Men stared. Torshai was on his knees, holding his forearm and grimacing. The third man was half sitting some distance away, feeling his ribs. Little Yulia stood wide-eyed and aghast. Sasha held her final pose, stanch poised, and glared at them all.
“I am the uma of Kessligh Cronenverdt!” she announced, in case there was any doubt. “I am not just his plaything, whatever some may say! You call yourself Nasi-Keth, and enlightened, but I see nothing but superstition and prejudice here! If I find one amongst you who is even half my standard with a blade, I'll let you know!”
She turned to leave, tugging the straps of her banda…and found Errollyn, leaning against a post regarding her.
“Oh, very subtle,” he said in Lenay, apparently very amused. “Kessligh shall be pleased.”
From the end of the longest pier on the fishermen's dock, Sasha could see all along North Pier, where the big ships moored and cargo moved from their holds to the warehouses and back. In the other direction, Sharptooth jutted into the water, blocking all view of Angel Bay-the southernmost half of Petrodor Harbour-save for Alaster Promontory, further beyond.
“Randel Ragini was one of Rhillian's?” Sasha asked Errollyn incredulously.
Errollyn nodded. He sat with his back to the pier's corner post, facing away from the ocean's glare. Partly, Sasha thought, so that he could keep an eye on the docks, and partly because a serrin's sensitive eyes were no friends of the bright sun. He carried no bow today-it would have been too conspicuous in the daytime.
“They're not all bad, the families,” he said tiredly. He looked dishevelled, dark grey hair falling haphazardly about his face. Sasha wondered how much sleep he'd had. “Randel Ragini had a taste for serrin things. Probably if he were poor, he'd have become a Nasi-Keth. But, being wealthy, he confined himself to trading curious artworks.”
“Patachi Steiner killed him for that?”
Errollyn shook his head. “No. Rhillian offered him things. Probably the patachi found out. I don't know how…I only just found out.”
“Offered him things?” Sasha squinted at him. There were men clambering on nearby boats, preparing to set sail. They were barely within earshot and unlikely to know Saalsi even if they heard. A swell rose beneath the pier as mooring ropes creaked and groaned. Wooden hulls clunked. “What things?”
“I wouldn't tell you if I knew,” Errollyn said with a faint smile. “I'm in enough trouble with Rhillian as it stands. If she finds out we talked, anyhow.”